Health ministry in Gaza says war death toll at 24,927 as Israel bombards strip's south

GAZA STRIP, Palestinian Territories — The health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza said on Saturday at least 24,927 people have been killed in the Palestinian territory since the war with Israel broke out on October 7.

A ministry statement said at least 165 people were killed over the past 24 hours, while another 62,388 have been wounded since the war began.

Israel ratcheted up its attacks in the south of the Gaza Strip on Saturday after prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu and US President Joe Biden discussed differences over a post-war future for Palestinians that have suggested a rift between the two allies.

Witnesses said the Israeli bombardment was again focused overnight on Khan Yunis, the largest city in Hamas-controlled Gaza's south, although Palestinian media also reported intense fire around Jabalia in the north early on Saturday.

Biden and Netanyahu held their first call since December 23 a day after the Israeli leader reiterated his rejection of any form of Palestinian sovereignty, deepening divisions with Israel's key backer over the war.

Biden said after Friday's call with Netanyahu, with whom he has had a complicated relationship over some 40 years, it was possible the Israeli leader might still come around.

“There are a number of types of two-state solutions. There’s a number of countries that are members of the UN that... don’t have their own militaries,” Biden told reporters after an event at the White House.

“And so, I think there’s ways in which this could work.”

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken had said in Davos a day earlier that Israel could not achieve “genuine security” without a “pathway to a Palestinian state”.

Famine, disease 

Biden has stood firmly behind Israel since the October 7 surprise attacks by Hamas, although he has also warned that Israel could lose support by “indiscriminate bombing” in Gaza.

The United Nations says the war has displaced roughly 85 per cent of Gaza’s people and warns better aid access is needed urgently as famine and disease loom.

The White House also said after Friday’s call that Israel will allow flour shipments for Palestinians through its port of Ashdod.

Nearly 20,000 babies have been born “in hell” in the Gaza Strip since the start of the Israeli offensive, the UN children’s agency UNICEF said on Friday.

A week-long communications blackout in Gaza has amplified the challenges, although the telecommunications ministry and operator Paltel said internet services were starting to return on Friday.

Israel’s military offensive has moved further south in Gaza as the conflict has progressed.

Metawei Nabil, recently released by Israeli forces and bearing scars on his arms, told AFP he fled Beit Lahia in northern Gaza only “to face death” in the devastated southern city of Rafah, near the Egyptian border.

Some residents who fled the initial stages of the war in northern Gaza have begun returning to what remains of their homes.

In Gaza City’s Rimal district, “everything is destroyed and the people are dying of hunger”, said Ibrahim Saada, who told AFP he lost his whole family.

Groups of isolated fighters still confront troops in northern Gaza despite the Israeli forces saying this month Hamas’s combat structures in the north had been dismantled.

The health ministry in Gaza said at least 90 people were killed in Israeli “attacks” across Gaza overnight.